


A Steady Hand to Hold

by Somebodys_Hermione



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternatively titled Beau needs to hold hands, F/F, Not Actually Kinky, and also pretty sad, kinky dnd handholding, mostly just sweet, spoilers for episode 92
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23355460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somebodys_Hermione/pseuds/Somebodys_Hermione
Summary: Or: 5 times Beau holds Yasha's hand and 1 time it's different
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 7
Kudos: 131





	A Steady Hand to Hold

**Author's Note:**

> The product of an ao3 tag generator off of tumblr that gave us the phrase "kinky dnd handholding" and a pair of friends with too much time on our hands and an attachment to beau/yasha
> 
> Title is fron Hadestown

It has been approximately 2 months since Beau has been traveling with the Nein, and she has to say she likes it. Getting paid to punch things is definitively the best job in the world, and it comes with the added bonus of having...friends? For the first time in her life? Like, she’d had compatriots before, ya know? Partners in crime. And she’d  _ definitely  _ had people she’d slept with, but at the end of the day, those weren’t people you got close to. They weren’t people who you laid down your lives for. And like, yeah, 2 months isn’t an extreme amount of time to be doing anything, but it was approaching the upper limit for how long people usually chose to tolerate her, and these people didn’t seem to be in a huge hurry to get rid of her. That was...nice. She was cautiously optimistic. Yeah, we’d call it that. 

Of course, traveling with this group didn’t mean she had to stop flirting entirely. She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of that, and now wasn’t the time to find out, especially when the group also contained a very sweet barbarian with a rockin’ fucking bod and pretty eyes.  _ Of course _ , this was not the time in Beau’s life to figure out if she was  _ always _ this horny. 

The problem with this is she had picked by far the hardest of the group to successfully flirt with. Yasha very rarely responded, which honestly could have meant anything, but luckily Beau prided herself on her lack of dignity, so that was not about to stop her from making a fool of herself on the daily. 

Today, the opportunity presented itself in the form of unusually cold weather. Fjord was  _ not  _ enjoying himself, so he was at the front of the cart with Jester soaking up her body warmth and letting her ramble. Caleb and Nott were engrossed in what seemed like a very important conversation in the corner of the cart and Molly seemed simply to be daydreaming across from her, so it really did seem to be the perfect opportunity to slowly sidle up next to Yasha who was working on cleaning her sword. 

“You know, Yasha, the cold really isn’t good for us monks.”

This had the intended effect of having Yasha look up to meet her eyes and respond, “Oh really? Why is that Beau?”

“The cold makes your body all stiff, right? And how are you supposed to fight like that?” She shivered for dramatic effect (and also because she was just in her cloak and it was  _ fucking  _ cold). Yasha nodded thoughtfully, which she took as permission to continue talking.

“I mean, just look at my hands! They’re practically blue! How am I supposed to punch shit with them like this?” The look on Yasha’s face turned concerned, and before Beau was able to form a coherent thought, her hands were now enveloped inside the barbarian’s much larger ones. 

Yasha smiled softly up at her and said, without a care in the world, as if she hadn’t just completely shattered Beau’s worldview, “There. That should warm them up.”

To be fair, Beau’s hands  _ did _ feel much warmer, but so did the rest of her body, especially her face. She could barely think about what was happening and  _ oh god what did it mean _ , before she heard Mollymauk’s voice pierce through her consciousness  _ Geez, Beau if you turned any redder I might mistake you for the Ruby of the Sea,  _ and suddenly the world crashed back into time. 

Jester turned around at the mention of her mother, Fjord made a joke, suddenly Caleb and Nott were back in the conversation which changed the topic and suddenly (here’s the important part) Yasha was no longer holding her hands. The disappointment she felt must have moved to her face, because the next time she looked up Molly was staring at her knowingly, with a small smirk etched on his face. God, she wanted to wipe that smirk right off of his face. She was never going to hear the end of this. 

****

Why did that absolute  _ motherfucker  _ have to die? She’d be lying if she said watching Molly die hadn’t hurt like fucking hell when it happened, because it absolutely did, but gods, watching Yasha see his grave was almost even worse. She didn’t think she’d ever seen that complete level of grief before in another person’s face. She had to do something, anything to alleviate it, she just  _ had to _ . 

When she first reached for Yasha’s hand, the barbarian instinctively jerked away, like she’d been burned, because of course she fucking had,  _ God Beau what were you thinking she’d been kidnapped and tortured who even knows what they did to her, why would you just try to touch her like that god that was so fucking stupi- _

Yasha grabbing her hand back was very unexpected, but suddenly the other woman was crushing Beau’s hand like a lifeline and it was all Beau could do to match her grip.

“I’m so sorry Yasha...he didn’t deserve....we should have....I’m just  _ so  _ sorry, I know how much he meant to you…”

She felt Yasha’s eyes on her, and when she looked up she could see the pain, but there was also a very sad smile on her face. 

“I know Beau. I know.” 

She felt one last hand squeeze before Yasha stepped down off the cart and walked towards the grave. Then the Scream, the Wings, and the Disappearance. And Beau could feel in her bones that it would be a while before she would get to see Yasha again. 

***

“Please don’t leave, Yasha?” A previous version of herself would likely have hated how needy that sounded, but Beau couldn’t bring herself to care. Yasha was leaving  _ again _ , and she hadn’t even planned on saying goodbye. She would have just slipped off into the night without a trace if Beau hadn’t been on watch and noticed her sneaking out in the storm. The rain was like a goddamn waterfall, which made sense for Yasha, but Beau was not thoroughly drenched watching one of her closest friends leave her and goddammit didn’t that feel like shit. 

Yasha’s face looked pained, and she barely seemed to be able to get out the phrase, “Beau, you don’t understand…”

“Then explain it!” Beau hadn’t registered moving, but suddenly she was right in front of Yasha and squeezing the other woman’s hands like she’d be able to convey all of the unspoken things right there in the grip of her fingers. “Don’t just leave and let us wonder what happened! We would miss you Yasha,  _ I  _ would miss you! We’re your  _ friends  _ and we want you around.”

She registered her hand being squeezed back before Yasha let go and stepped backward. “I-I’m sorry. Soon I’ll be able to stay, just-just not right now. Tell everyone I’ll miss them, ok and not to worry about me?”

Beau swiped a hand at her eyes, but if it was tears she was wiping away, you’d never be able to tell from the rain bucketing down from the sky. “I wish you’d tell them yourself...but alright. Take care of yourself Yasha.”

“You do the same Beauregard”, and as Yasha turned to go she seemed to stop herself and turned back with an unreadable look in her eyes. “I wish I could stay for you. I’m sorry I can’t.”

An ugly sound bubbled from Beau’s throat that might have been a chuckle if she wasn’t so upset. “Yeah, Yasha I know. Just come back soon, ok? Can’t fucking deal with these morons on my own ya know? Not enough common sense.”

And then with a nod, Yasha was gone, and Beau hated how empty she felt. 

***

_ Fuck _ , almost dying wiped you out. Beau didn’t really even remember any of the fight, and she  _ definitely  _ didn’t remember anything after Yasha had literally impaled her on the ground, which like? Fucking brutal and not exactly something she wanted to be her last memory before she went unconscious.

And now she was just sort of propped up in....a room? (she wasn’t exactly sure where she was) getting healed by Caduceus and feeling like complete and utter shit. She saw Yasha walking towards her, and oh hey! That means they’d fixed the mind control thing! Congratu-fucking-lations to them honestly. But the look on Yasha’s face was that of utter devastation, which of course reminded Beau that Yasha was the cause of her current predicament. 

The first thing she registers is the feeling of Yasha’s hand in hers and warm and nice and honestly enough for her in this, but then the Barbarian leans forward and presses her hand onto Beau’s stomach and sends a burst of warm energy that immediately makes the wound close more and stop stinging, which is honestly even better. Throughout all this, Yasha is repeating the string of ‘’I’m so sorry Beau, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

It’s probably her deliriousness that leads Beau to say “Don’t beat yourself up Yash, I’ve had dreams just like that, ya know?”, very stupidly and unfortunately, she coughs up just a tiny bit of blood while saying it, which kind of undercuts her point. 

Yasha, to her credit, had still not let go of Beau’s hand and was now using it to gently bring the monk to her feet with a look of intense concern in her eyes. And if Beau kept hold of Yasha’s hand for the rest of their short rest? Well, fuck, she’d had a hard day. 

***

She really hadn’t expected it to be as hard as it had been, just seeing her parents again. She’d thought she was over it, or at least closer to being over it than she obviously was. She had a new family now, one who loved her, what did she need with the fucker who paid a monastery to fucking kidnap her. He didn’t mean anything. But it only took one look at him to send her right back to being a teenager. Being somebody he could hurt, and being hurt over and over and over again. 

They’d gotten the information they came for, she’d watched her friends defend her, and then they’d fucking gotten out of there, but she was still sitting hunched over in the corner of the tavern desperately trying to fight back tears. Godfuck, she was so mad at herself that at first, she didn’t even hear the large Aasimar sit down across from her. In fact, she didn’t even fully realize what was happening until Yasha had softly pried Beau’s hands off the mug she was holding and was now carefully cradling them in her own. 

“Beau, I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

She couldn’t even contain her snort at that one. “It's not like it's your fucking fault Yash, you don’t need to apologize.”

There was a flicker of hesitation in Yasha’s face. “I-I just meant...you are a good person Beau. A person who deserves love. And-and I just...I’m so sorry that anyone made you think otherwise.”

Now this takes Beau by surprise, because, like, she’s had the people she calls family tell her these things before, but she’s never really bothered to believe them before. And either way, it definitely feels different when it's coming during a complete emotional breakdown from the friend you’re low-key in love with (just a litte, don’t make a thing of it). 

So while the voice inside her is telling her to bolt, to go hide in her room and pretend this never happened, she just can’t bring herself to move. So instead she just focused on the feeling of Yasha’s hands in hers, their warmth, and the faint, steady pulse she could feel. 

“Thank you Yasha, that really means a lot.”

“Of course.”

Beau would refuse to tell you how long they stayed there like that, but...Yasha would likely tell you that it was for a very long time. 

***

They’d been on that beach for a while. Beau wasn’t even tired which was the weirdest part, so she just kept sitting there until all of her friends had filtered back to their respective lodgings. Well, all except one. 

Yasha looked so at peace, staring out into the ocean that Beau felt guilty even thinking about breaking that peace. But it had been a cloud between them for too long and she really didn’t think it would be any good to not tell her at this point. Beau was a person who faced her problems head-on. She had to face this one head-on too. 

“Uhhhhhh…...Yasha can I tell you something?” And then suddenly her companion’s eyes were on here and oh fuck fuck fuck she hadn’t thought this through. She was so ready to bail, to just fucking bolt when Yasha said “Absolutely Beau. What is it?”

Well, now Beau had to do it, so may as well get it over with. “So uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….Yasha? IThinkIMightBeInLoveWithYou?” A part of her was tempted to look over to see Yasha’s face, but no she had to finish this before getting her heart broken. 

“And you know, I’m totally cool pretending this never happened, because I’m sure this is super embarrassing for you and shit I just felt like I was kind of lying seeing you every day and not telling you and I just really hope that this doesn’t change anythi-”

And then she is cut off by the feeling of a hand, reaching out to grab hers. Yasha is still looking at the sea, but she is unmistakably holding Beau’s hand and Beau momentarily forgets how to breathe. 

And when Yasha says I love you back, she’s sure she’ll never breathe again. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Full blame goes to TheWisdomQueen


End file.
